<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2018 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
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**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Review',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>University drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		The maths professor posted the discussion question in the forum today, so I was able to post my response.
		I actually wrote up most of my response last night before the question was posted though.
		The premise is that you have a vending machine with three buttons.
		One dispenses fertiliser, one a rat, and one randomly fertiliser or a rat.
		Given that all three vending machine buttons have the same price tag attached, all relevant customers want both, and all relevant customers can only afford one, which button will be hit most and which hit least?
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			What a bizarre question.
			I have no idea how to even speculate which button will be hit the most.
			If the buyers are in any way intelligent though and, as the assignment says, don&apos;t have funds to spare, button C (the randomised button) should never be hit, and would therefore be hit the least out of the three buttons.
			People need to decide which item they want more and hit A or B accordingly.
			The only reason they would prefer to use button C is if they don&apos;t want to put careful thought into deciding what to buy, and if they&apos;re that short on funds, failing to take the time to decide is incredibly stupid; in such cases that they don&apos;t want to decide, they&apos;re better off saving their money instead of buying anything.
		</p>
		<p>
			The assignment problem doesn&apos;t tell us the nature of the fertiliser.
			It might be some factory-produced, nitrate-enriched substance.
			Or it could be cow poop.
			We just don&apos;t know.
			Depending on what is needed though and how quickly it&apos;ll be needed, you could buy the rat and use the rat poop as your fertiliser.
			In this case, the obvious answer is that button B would be pressed more.
		</p>
		<p>
			On the other hand, we also weren&apos;t told the purpose of the fertiliser.
			Perhaps it&apos;s for growing rat food.
			In this case, it makes little sense to buy the rat before you can feed it, but it could be a good idea to buy the fertiliser now to start the growing process so you have rat food by the time you can afford the rat.
			In this case, button A should see more use for the given situation, though button B will be pressed eventually.
			Still, button A could see more total use, as the rat will need to be acquired only once, but fed countless times.
		</p>
		<p>
			In the real world, different people will have different use cases.
			Assuming everyone, as the problem states, can only afford to buy one of the two, which button they&apos;ll hit depends on their use case, with two (of many) possible use cases listed above.
			We have no way to know which use cases will be more common, so we have no way to know which button should be hit more often.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		It looks like the maths course may be mostly review after all.
		There&apos;s some new notation I need to learn, but so far, I haven&apos;t encountered any actual new concepts.
	</p>
	<p>
		With school back in session, I&apos;ve found my lethargia has already returned.
		That didn&apos;t take long.
		School&apos;s no fun when I&apos;m not allowed to have my voice be heard.
		It&apos;s going to be a struggle to get any real coursework done on days I have a shift scheduled.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
